Yeah, but Nick Clegg was born with a birthmark on his arse that reads "KICK ME"......
Nick Clegg's fatal mistake was trusting the Tories, I doubt the Lib Dems will ever make that mistake again (likewise the DUP).
Is that multimillionaire Nick Clegg who is now in Silicon Valley getting paid an absolute fortune after years of being in "the quad" running government with the perks accompanying it? Yeah I'm sure he's so upset at his mistake . . .
Remember my Cameremain Vs Premain question? The Indy's chief Pol correspondent John Rentoul has promised me on twitter that he'll ask it to the remain panel at the Hezza remain rally in Westminster on Friday. If he does then I'll buy the Indy for a year.
The longer this campaign has gone on, the less inclined I am to vote for any of the three main parties:-
1. Corbyn: no. Lots of reasons - mainly dragging his party into a Far Leftist illiberal anti-Semitic gutter. And the WASPI bribe has really annoyed me. 2. Boris: no. A total charlatan. Has made a Faustian pact with the Hard Brexiteers for the sake of his ambition thereby trashing the main things which made traditional Conservatism worthwhile. 3. Swinson: strategically inept and talking dangerous rubbish over the Gender Recognition Act. Apparently expecting people with gender dysphoria to undergo medical tests is too too ghastly to contemplate but women are expected to put up with having men invade their private spaces and the risk of some of them abusing that. In Lib Dem La-La-land, rape is not as ghastly as being asked questions by a doctor.
In my constituency that leaves the Brexit Party (as if!) or the Greens.
Or the Meeks option - abstaining in person.
What a choice.
From your perspective, perhaps voting Green makes sense? You'll slightly depress the vote share of the other parties that you dislike, and although Green policies are pretty OTT, you may feel that they're OTT in the right general direction, and pro-Remain as well?
Personally I think you're mistaken in letting the party leaders determine your choice. We don't have a presidential system, and while Boris's purge may have neutered his backbenchers, none of the leaders can totally rely on their parties.
They can all totally rely on them to support them for PM.
The longer this campaign has gone on, the less inclined I am to vote for any of the three main parties:-
1. Corbyn: no. Lots of reasons - mainly dragging his party into a Far Leftist illiberal anti-Semitic gutter. And the WASPI bribe has really annoyed me. 2. Boris: no. A total charlatan. Has made a Faustian pact with the Hard Brexiteers for the sake of his ambition thereby trashing the main things which made traditional Conservatism worthwhile. 3. Swinson: strategically inept and talking dangerous rubbish over the Gender Recognition Act. Apparently expecting people with gender dysphoria to undergo medical tests is too too ghastly to contemplate but women are expected to put up with having men invade their private spaces and the risk of some of them abusing that. In Lib Dem La-La-land, rape is not as ghastly as being asked questions by a doctor...
Watched Peston. Quite an achievement by him in making Boris look serious, focused and over the detail, juxtaposed with Rob's whiny 6-former routine.
I also watched Jezza on with Philip and Holly. Thought he came across fine to be honest, though he does seem to have less of the Tigger about him compared with 2017. Will be interesting to see what sort of line they take with Bozza, neither of them give the impression of being dyed in the wool socialists.
If I get around to it I'll watch Andy Neil with the School Mistress but I"m not sure it will add much to my life.
As has been said, voting should be this week, a whole week more of this is unnecessary tedium.
Meanwhile, I thought quite a good trailer for Bond and a slightly mediocre one for Black Widow. Hopefully it gets a simulcast on Disney+, not sure I can be bothered forking out for a baby sitter for that one.
The SLab vote seems to be almost halved, and is splintering quite literally in all directions. Not mostly SNP, as I, and many others, had assumed.
If we end up with roughly the same number of MPs we started with then there are going to be a lot of unhappy bunnies in my party.
Incidentally, the poll indicates that turnout is going to be sky-high in Scotland.
Batten down the hatches. If Scots thought Thatcherism was grim, they ain’t seen nothing yet. London is going to be vindictive and vicious on an unprecedented scale.
Yeah, but Nick Clegg was born with a birthmark on his arse that reads "KICK ME"......
Nick Clegg's fatal mistake was trusting the Tories, I doubt the Lib Dems will ever make that mistake again (likewise the DUP).
The voters fatal mistake was trusting Nick Clegg,particularly the young voters that believed his lies about scrapping tuition fees.
Remember every single Lib Dem MP made a personal pledge with all the razzmatazz that went with it, Clegg go into coalition where he could deliver his promise & then tripled fees.
One pledge on tuition fees pales into insignificance compared to the lies that Johnson comes out with on a weekly basis. Without entirely excusing what they did, the Lib Dems were a very junior party in the coalition and were in no position to honour their manifesto pledges.
No it does not, the pledge was made specifically to young people,many were first time voters & trusted Clegg.
Absolute nonsense about not being able to honour the pledge, the Lib Dems could easily have made it one of their red lines.
Agreed.
I understand why Lib Dems want to revise history, but the Rose Garden and associated events are some of the most disgraceful political events during my lifetime. Quite rightly, the Lib Dems got thumped at the ballot box for their stupidity, mendacity and greed. Some contrition would not go amiss.
Yeah, but Nick Clegg was born with a birthmark on his arse that reads "KICK ME"......
Nick Clegg's fatal mistake was trusting the Tories, I doubt the Lib Dems will ever make that mistake again (likewise the DUP).
The voters fatal mistake was trusting Nick Clegg,particularly the young voters that believed his lies about scrapping tuition fees. Remember every single Lib Dem MP made a personal pledge with all the razzmatazz that went with it, Clegg go into coalition where he could deliver his promise & then tripled fees.
One pledge on tuition fees pales into insignificance compared to the lies that Johnson comes out with on a weekly basis. Without entirely excusing what they did, the Lib Dems were a very junior party in the coalition and were in no position to honour their manifesto pledges.
No it does not, the pledge was made specifically to young people,many were first time voters & trusted Clegg. Absolute nonsense about not being able to honour the pledge, the Lib Dems could easily have made it one of their red lines.
Agreed. I understand why Lib Dems want to revise history, but the Rose Garden and associated events are some of the most disgraceful political events during my lifetime. Quite rightly, the Lib Dems got thumped at the ballot box for their stupidity, mendacity and greed. Some contrition would not go amiss.
It has become bitterly clear over the last month that British left wingers and most liberals are not allies of Jews when it comes to anti-Semitism.
Uh? Some of those leftwingers are themselves Jews. I am not saying who is right or wrong in any particular case. But a Jew who alleges a person is anti-Semitic is not more Jewish than a Jew who disagrees with that characterisation.
Moreover a non-Jew too may legitimately disagree with a Jew when the latter makes an accusation of anti-Semitism.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
As the New Statesman says (in not endorsing Labour):
"This general election has been described as the most pivotal since Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979 heralded the new right’s counter-revolution against the postwar consensus. If the Conservatives win a comfortable majority on 12 December, Britain will leave the European Union and Remainers campaigning for a second referendum will have been defeated. The Labour Party is likely to be immersed in another civil war as the Corbynites seek to maintain control. Beyond Westminster, the United Kingdom, already a fragile multinational construct, will be roiled by a succession of constitutional crises."
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
No, it is a gender neutral uniform policy.
There can be several different options, including skirts and trousers for example, but neither can be specified for one gender. It is not a unisex uniform policy.
Gender issues do seem to be increasingly frequent in youngsters, even at very young ages. I am not sure what the best approach is myself, but undeniably there real issues developing.
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
What happens to kids number 31 and 32? Sent home? Or a teacher hired especially for them?
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
Caps on class sizes also means that heads have to turn down applications for places. Class sizes should be a guideline not a red line. There is nothing magic about the figure of 30.
A bad day at work yesterday. It is miserable not having any beds to admit to, but much more miserable for the patients. No real prospect of improvement until the New Year. I would strongly advise against getting Ill this month.
Good result in the footy though to take my mind off it all.
He has apparently said if he becomes PM he will turn Chequers over to a homeless family.
He seems not to be aware that this would be illegal under the Chequers Estate Act 1917:
Clause 8(b): But if any Prime Minister shall decline to avail himself of the rights hereby conferred upon him then so long as he shall so decline similar rights shall be offered by the Administrative Trustees to the following persons and in the following order viz. :—The Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the time being The Secretary of State for the Colonies for the time being The United States Ambassador at the Court of Saint James's for the time being The President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the time being The First Lord of the Admiralty for the time being The Secretary of State for War for the time being The Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being The Lord Chief Justice of England for the time being or to the respective persons for the time being holding similar positions to the above
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
What happens to kids number 31 and 32? Sent home? Or a teacher hired especially for them?
As Foxy says, they would have to be refused places. Which is also illegal.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
He has apparently said if he becomes PM he will turn Chequers over to a homeless family.
He seems not to be aware that this would be illegal under the Chequers Estate Act 1917:
Clause 8(b): But if any Prime Minister shall decline to avail himself of the rights hereby conferred upon him then so long as he shall so decline similar rights shall be offered by the Administrative Trustees to the following persons and in the following order viz. :—The Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the time being The Secretary of State for the Colonies for the time being The United States Ambassador at the Court of Saint James's for the time being The President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the time being The First Lord of the Admiralty for the time being The Secretary of State for War for the time being The Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being The Lord Chief Justice of England for the time being or to the respective persons for the time being holding similar positions to the above
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Wavering in your determination not to support the anti-semite enabler then?
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
To be absolutely fair to Labour, the £25bn extra (spread over three years) is included in their grey book. Unlike the bulk of their funding commitments.
Obviously your point with respect to teacher shortages, especially in struggling areas with correspondingly bad schools, is valid. If Labour were really that committed to equality of opportunity in education, then they'd presumably withdraw parents' right of choice to where they sent their kids and use their National Education Service to allocate the most deprived children to the best schools, until such time as the worst schools could be brought up to scratch?
However, since Labour's programme includes a whole host of bungs that would disproportionately benefit the already well-off (e.g. knockdown rail fares, ending prescription charges, free personal care and abolishing tuition fees) we ought not to be surprised that rocking the boat with sharp-elbowed middle-class parents is pretty low down their list of priorities.
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
What happens to kids number 31 and 32? Sent home? Or a teacher hired especially for them?
Force the local private shool to take them and increase their class sizes to 24
I remember in junior school in 1977 having violin lessons in the staff room (my memory is much better than my violin skills ever were). There were posters and flyers there from the NUT with a headline No classes with over 30 pupils, or something similar. My point is that keeping class sizes down has been a problem for well over 40 years.
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
No, it is a gender neutral uniform policy.
There can be several different options, including skirts and trousers for example, but neither can be specified for one gender. It is not a unisex uniform policy.
Gender issues do seem to be increasingly frequent in youngsters, even at very young ages. I am not sure what the best approach is myself, but undeniably there real issues developing.
Now to an anecdote from my senior school (early 80s). The girls were allowed trousers, ties and blazers and no one thought it was odd when they did. I think it is rediculous that many schools still do not allow girls to wear trousers.
The big step forward with Swinson's policy though, is allowing boys to wear skirts, which would be a good step forward. I have never understood why a skirt/dress is culturally so unacceptable for men, unless wearing a kilt or dressing up as a Roman.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Mike - you are a LibDem to your core if it takes a week to consider the options before voting for your own party
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
No, it is a gender neutral uniform policy.
There can be several different options, including skirts and trousers for example, but neither can be specified for one gender. It is not a unisex uniform policy.
Gender issues do seem to be increasingly frequent in youngsters, even at very young ages. I am not sure what the best approach is myself, but undeniably there real issues developing.
My son and his pals all gleefully ticked the box other when anonymously sampled by the school. So far neither he nor his pals have taken up their new found right to wear a skirt. Taking the piss with this sort of thing is what boys do. There is another word for those that take their mickey taking seriously.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Mike - you are a LibDem to your core if it takes a week to consider the options before voting for your own party
Then again, maybe after "OGH LetterGate"?
Mike has previously vote-swapped.
He has also said he couldn't vote for a Corbyn-led Labour.
And now he won't vote for Boris either, even in a vote-swap.
So safely assuming it won't be Brexit, that leaves Green and LibDem.
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
In future years, there are going to be lawsuits by kids who were allowed to take hormones and have themselves mutilated and later regretted it.
People under 18 are not given hormones or surgery.
They are given medication to delay the onset of puberty though so that they can make a slightly less complicated choice post 18. Whether this is in fact a good idea is controversial.
The longer this campaign has gone on, the less inclined I am to vote for any of the three main parties:-
1. Corbyn: no. Lots of reasons - mainly dragging his party into a Far Leftist illiberal anti-Semitic gutter. And the WASPI bribe has really annoyed me. 2. Boris: no. A total charlatan. Has made a Faustian pact with the Hard Brexiteers for the sake of his ambition thereby trashing the main things which made traditional Conservatism worthwhile. 3. Swinson: strategically inept and talking dangerous rubbish over the Gender Recognition Act. Apparently expecting people with gender dysphoria to undergo medical tests is too too ghastly to contemplate but women are expected to put up with having men invade their private spaces and the risk of some of them abusing that. In Lib Dem La-La-land, rape is not as ghastly as being asked questions by a doctor.
In my constituency that leaves the Brexit Party (as if!) or the Greens.
Or the Meeks option - abstaining in person.
What a choice.
How many trans women have raped cis women in women-only spaces, in fact?
He has apparently said if he becomes PM he will turn Chequers over to a homeless family.
He seems not to be aware that this would be illegal under the Chequers Estate Act 1917:
Clause 8(b): But if any Prime Minister shall decline to avail himself of the rights hereby conferred upon him then so long as he shall so decline similar rights shall be offered by the Administrative Trustees to the following persons and in the following order viz. :—The Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the time being The Secretary of State for the Colonies for the time being The United States Ambassador at the Court of Saint James's for the time being The President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the time being The First Lord of the Admiralty for the time being The Secretary of State for War for the time being The Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being The Lord Chief Justice of England for the time being or to the respective persons for the time being holding similar positions to the above
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
He has apparently said if he becomes PM he will turn Chequers over to a homeless family.
He seems not to be aware that this would be illegal under the Chequers Estate Act 1917:
Clause 8(b): But if any Prime Minister shall decline to avail himself of the rights hereby conferred upon him then so long as he shall so decline similar rights shall be offered by the Administrative Trustees to the following persons and in the following order viz. :—The Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the time being The Secretary of State for the Colonies for the time being The United States Ambassador at the Court of Saint James's for the time being The President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the time being The First Lord of the Admiralty for the time being The Secretary of State for War for the time being The Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being The Lord Chief Justice of England for the time being or to the respective persons for the time being holding similar positions to the above
Edit - it occurs to me it would be deliciously ironic if he tried to put a homeless family in and as result the American Ambassador got the lease.
Yes, if only the prime minister and government of the time had some ability to effect changes in the law...
You keep telling us Corbyn won’t have that. But you also seem not to understand that those are the terms of a lease from a private charity, written into law. If you change the law you would invalidate the lease.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
In future years, there are going to be lawsuits by kids who were allowed to take hormones and have themselves mutilated and later regretted it.
People under 18 are not given hormones or surgery.
They are given medication to delay the onset of puberty though so that they can make a slightly less complicated choice post 18. Whether this is in fact a good idea is controversial.
Indeed, but delaying puberty hardly counts as mutilation
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
What happens to kids number 31 and 32? Sent home? Or a teacher hired especially for them?
When I was at primary school, well over 50 years ago they juggled pupils forward a year and backwards a year to even us out. After we left they made two classes of the peak year and moved pupils up and down to fill them both.
I believe Public Schools operate on class sizes of 18.
When I was doing A Levels there were 6 of us doing physics and that went down to four. We were told that big towns and cities had the option of pulling pupils for two of three schools to run one A Level subject - we were sceptical and I still am.
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
The SLab vote seems to be almost halved, and is splintering quite literally in all directions. Not mostly SNP, as I, and many others, had assumed.
If we end up with roughly the same number of MPs we started with then there are going to be a lot of unhappy bunnies in my party.
Incidentally, the poll indicates that turnout is going to be sky-high in Scotland.
Batten down the hatches. If Scots thought Thatcherism was grim, they ain’t seen nothing yet. London is going to be vindictive and vicious on an unprecedented scale.
Presume it went on SNP national total and Tory national total rather than Scottish subsample.
However if the Tories did get 31% in Scotland and 14 Scottish seats it would be the best Tory result in Scotland since 1983 seats wise and votes wise since 1979, so much for Boris being unpopular with Scots and the Tories being doomed without Ruth Davidson
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
What happens to kids number 31 and 32? Sent home? Or a teacher hired especially for them?
When I was at primary school, well over 50 years ago they juggled pupils forward a year and backwards a year to even us out. After we left they made two classes of the peak year and moved pupils up and down to fill them both.
I believe Public Schools operate on class sizes of 18.
When I was doing A Levels there were 6 of us doing physics and that went down to four. We were told that big towns and cities had the option of pulling pupils for two of three schools to run one A Level subject - we were sceptical and I still am.
No, that does happen. In Gloucester, for example, psychology was only offered at one school (the one I taught in) so we had students come from two other schools to do it. It meant we could afford a psychology teacher and they didn’t have to find the money for one for a couple of pupils OR see them move to other schools.
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
To be absolutely fair to Labour, the £25bn extra (spread over three years) is included in their grey book. Unlike the bulk of their funding commitments.
Obviously your point with respect to teacher shortages, especially in struggling areas with correspondingly bad schools, is valid. If Labour were really that committed to equality of opportunity in education, then they'd presumably withdraw parents' right of choice to where they sent their kids and use their National Education Service to allocate the most deprived children to the best schools, until such time as the worst schools could be brought up to scratch?
However, since Labour's programme includes a whole host of bungs that would disproportionately benefit the already well-off (e.g. knockdown rail fares, ending prescription charges, free personal care and abolishing tuition fees) we ought not to be surprised that rocking the boat with sharp-elbowed middle-class parents is pretty low down their list of priorities.
That's nothng new. Tax Credits were Blair's attempt to make middle-class parents dependant on the benefits system.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Mike - you are a LibDem to your core if it takes a week to consider the options before voting for your own party
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
But that wouldn’t be 20,000 more. They said so about nurses, so it must be true.
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
That’s not altogether true. The largest class I taught in my inner city comp was 34. The largest I have taught since was 30. The largest I have come across was a friend in Middlesbrough with 37.
Although of course good schools are oversubscribed for a very obvious reason.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Mike - you are a LibDem to your core if it takes a week to consider the options before voting for your own party
Then again, maybe after "OGH LetterGate"?
He’s not yet received his own letter, clearly.
His own letter tells him he is not telling himself how to vote, so that's not much help.
Weather for election day does seem to indicate unsettled and windy conditions. Precipitation details still up for grabs as still a week to go!
Not quite the snowmageddon that PB’s Express readers were predicting just recently, though?
Indeed! I wish people would stop using the GFS (the much derided US NWP model). A lot of the data is freely available on the internet but it's not a great model.
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
What happens to kids number 31 and 32? Sent home? Or a teacher hired especially for them?
When I was at primary school, well over 50 years ago they juggled pupils forward a year and backwards a year to even us out. After we left they made two classes of the peak year and moved pupils up and down to fill them both.
I believe Public Schools operate on class sizes of 18.
When I was doing A Levels there were 6 of us doing physics and that went down to four. We were told that big towns and cities had the option of pulling pupils for two of three schools to run one A Level subject - we were sceptical and I still am.
If the schools are close enough to each other and they can align their timetables then it can certainly be done.
Weather for election day does seem to indicate unsettled and windy conditions. Precipitation details still up for grabs as still a week to go!
Not quite the snowmageddon that PB’s Express readers were predicting just recently, though?
Indeed! I wish people would stop using the GFS (the much derided US NWP model). A lot of the data is freely available on the internet but it's not a great model.
Stick to the ECMWF or the UKMO Global Model.
Europe > US as ever!
When we vote, we will be pissed on from a great height.
And the weather’s going to be quite wet and miserable and all.
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
But that wouldn’t be 20,000 more. They said so about nurses, so it must be true.
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
That’s not altogether true. The largest class I taught in my inner city comp was 34. The largest I have taught since was 30. The largest I have come across was a friend in Middlesbrough with 37.
Although of course good schools are oversubscribed for a very obvious reason.
I’m over generalising from my own experience again I see...
Having said that, we have classes of 33 and even 34, though most are smaller.
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
It would be easier to promise that “we will recruit X plus 25,000 more teachers, where X is the higher of the numbers which either the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats are pledging.”
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
But that wouldn’t be 20,000 more. They said so about nurses, so it must be true.
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
That’s not altogether true. The largest class I taught in my inner city comp was 34. The largest I have taught since was 30. The largest I have come across was a friend in Middlesbrough with 37.
Although of course good schools are oversubscribed for a very obvious reason.
I’m over generalising from my own experience again I see...
Thank goodness I am completely free from this fault.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
How are you feeling about it al BJO?
We will not win.
Johnson Maj of between 20 and 40
New direction for Lab on 13.12.19
Not sure if I will vote on next Lab leader.
I am sure Laura Pidcock will win anyway, even if Labour goes sub 200 seats as Comres projects.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
How are you feeling about it al BJO?
We will not win.
Johnson Maj of between 20 and 40
New direction for Lab on 13.12.19
Not sure if I will vote on next Lab leader.
I am sure Laura Pidcock will win anyway, even if Labour goes sub 200 seats as Comres projects.
If she becomes leader, we should brace ourselves for Prime Minister Davey in about 20 years.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
No all seats are counted linearly. Every count adds no more and no less than 1 to the vote total in any seat.
The seat winners simply got more votes. Its not like one party gets 12k votes but loses to another that got 7k mythical double-votes. If you want to win, get more votes - its not rocket science!
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
In future years, there are going to be lawsuits by kids who were allowed to take hormones and have themselves mutilated and later regretted it.
People under 18 are not given hormones or surgery.
They are given medication to delay the onset of puberty though so that they can make a slightly less complicated choice post 18. Whether this is in fact a good idea is controversial.
Indeed, but delaying puberty hardly counts as mutilation
Well I don't count myself as a bleeding heart, anything but, but that sounds terrible to me. We are going into some dark places.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Did Nick Clegg ever subject himself to Andrew Neil during an election campaign? I don't think Cameron did, but did Clegg? Or Miliband when you vote swapped and voted for his party?
The longer this campaign has gone on, the less inclined I am to vote for any of the three main parties:-
1. Corbyn: no. Lots of reasons - mainly dragging his party into a Far Leftist illiberal anti-Semitic gutter. And the WASPI bribe has really annoyed me. 2. Boris: no. A total charlatan. Has made a Faustian pact with the Hard Brexiteers for the sake of his ambition thereby trashing the main things which made traditional Conservatism worthwhile. 3. Swinson: strategically inept and talking dangerous rubbish over the Gender Recognition Act. Apparently expecting people with gender dysphoria to undergo medical tests is too too ghastly to contemplate but women are expected to put up with having men invade their private spaces and the risk of some of them abusing that. In Lib Dem La-La-land, rape is not as ghastly as being asked questions by a doctor.
In my constituency that leaves the Brexit Party (as if!) or the Greens.
Or the Meeks option - abstaining in person.
What a choice.
How many trans women have raped cis women in women-only spaces, in fact?
As far as I know, all the examples used for this have been trans women in women-only prisons who already had a history of sexual assault. The prison system should never be exposing vulnerable women to people with a history of sexual assault (on women) regardless of their gender presentation.
It seems to me that this particular group could (and should have been in the first place frankly) be excluded from women’s prisons without that decision having much to do any other part of the discussion about wider trans issues.
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
But that wouldn’t be 20,000 more. They said so about nurses, so it must be true.
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
That’s not altogether true. The largest class I taught in my inner city comp was 34. The largest I have taught since was 30. The largest I have come across was a friend in Middlesbrough with 37.
Although of course good schools are oversubscribed for a very obvious reason.
I’m over generalising from my own experience again I see...
Having said that, we have classes of 33 and even 34, though most are smaller.
And the honest question which should follow, did you feel that these large class sizes did compromise the quality of education that the whole class got, or a section of the class, or made no difference ?
Clearly there would be a difference between 30 and the public school 18, but is there a difference between 30 and 34 ?
Every vote counts. Every election every seat start with zero votes cast and every seat can change hands. Former safe seats can be overturned or become marginals if that is what the local voters want.
If you want to elect a Lib Dem MP you don't need to change the electoral system. You just need more of your neighbours in your constituency to also vote Lib Dem than Tory or anyone else.
The first step to changing anything is to realise your own problems. The problem is not the electoral system the problem is people don't want to vote for your party.
Sadly some votes count for a lot more than others. As is blindingly obvious when you look at the results.
I vote in a seat, Bedford, where it almost always matters and is regarded as the top bellwether constituency of all 650 of them.. It makes you think very carefully. I've had my postal voting pack for a week and have decided to wait until next Thursday before making my choice.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
As you know only one other party can win in Bedford.
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
Absolutely yes. It's painful, but Brexit is a singular event, and so important that it very nearly overshadows all other options. Of course, Bexitiers (Name no names!) will cleave to the antisemite issue, but I think we can deal with Corbyn later.
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
They've completely lost the plot. The liberal thing to do would be to abolish school uniforms.
The liberal thing to do would be to just let people do whatever suits them.
That is what the policy proposal is.
I think the problem is that "gender neutral" implies unisex. Most people don't have a problem with girls wearing trousers or boys wearing skirts, but it would help if the Lib Dems had clarified that they are very much opposed to girls (or boys) not being allowed to wear skirts.
Of course, faith school might not be too keen on the Lib Dem policy:
A Liberal Democrat pledge to introduce gender-neutral clothing could pose problems for Jewish schools, the Jewish Leadership Council’s schools network, Pajes, has warned.
Jo Swinson's latest policy is to require all genders at school to wear the same uniform. Is this really a vote winner?
In future years, there are going to be lawsuits by kids who were allowed to take hormones and have themselves mutilated and later regretted it.
People under 18 are not given hormones or surgery.
They are given medication to delay the onset of puberty though so that they can make a slightly less complicated choice post 18. Whether this is in fact a good idea is controversial.
Indeed, but delaying puberty hardly counts as mutilation
Well I don't count myself as a bleeding heart, anything but, but that sounds terrible to me. We are going into some dark places.
Puberty is what cures a lot of "gender confused" kids - it gives a massive dose of the appropriate hormones, and this tends to make them much more comfortable in their own gender.
My sister was like this. She basically wanted to be a boy until she was about 14. Hormones did their thing, she became pretty relaxed about being a girl. She's now 30, happily married, perfectly normal. Fortunately no one was stupid enough back then to think that rather boyish girls should have puberty blocked followed by lots of surgery and usually mental health problems.
Comments
Watched Peston. Quite an achievement by him in making Boris look serious, focused and over the detail, juxtaposed with Rob's whiny 6-former routine.
I also watched Jezza on with Philip and Holly. Thought he came across fine to be honest, though he does seem to have less of the Tigger about him compared with 2017. Will be interesting to see what sort of line they take with Bozza, neither of them give the impression of being dyed in the wool socialists.
If I get around to it I'll watch Andy Neil with the School Mistress but I"m not sure it will add much to my life.
As has been said, voting should be this week, a whole week more of this is unnecessary tedium.
Meanwhile, I thought quite a good trailer for Bond and a slightly mediocre one for Black Widow. Hopefully it gets a simulcast on Disney+, not sure I can be bothered forking out for a baby sitter for that one.
That poll has the best sub-sample for the Scottish Conservatives that I have ever seen: above 30%!
SNP 40% (+3)
SCon 31% (+2)
SLab 15% (-12)
SLD 10% (+3)
Baxtered:
SNP 38 seats (+3)
SCon 14 seats (+1)
SLD 5 seats (+1)
SLab 2 seats (-5)
The SLab vote seems to be almost halved, and is splintering quite literally in all directions. Not mostly SNP, as I, and many others, had assumed.
If we end up with roughly the same number of MPs we started with then there are going to be a lot of unhappy bunnies in my party.
Incidentally, the poll indicates that turnout is going to be sky-high in Scotland.
Batten down the hatches. If Scots thought Thatcherism was grim, they ain’t seen nothing yet. London is going to be vindictive and vicious on an unprecedented scale.
I understand why Lib Dems want to revise history, but the Rose Garden and associated events are some of the most disgraceful political events during my lifetime. Quite rightly, the Lib Dems got thumped at the ballot box for their stupidity, mendacity and greed. Some contrition would not go amiss.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50660212
Moreover a non-Jew too may legitimately disagree with a Jew when the latter makes an accusation of anti-Semitism.
"This general election has been described as the most pivotal since Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979 heralded the new right’s counter-revolution against the postwar consensus. If the Conservatives win a comfortable majority on 12 December, Britain will leave the European Union and Remainers campaigning for a second referendum will have been defeated. The Labour Party is likely to be immersed in another civil war as the Corbynites seek to maintain control. Beyond Westminster, the United Kingdom, already a fragile multinational construct, will be roiled by a succession of constitutional crises."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/election-2019/2019/12/leader-britain-deserves-better
And the Libdem offering is Revoke and...this?
How do the school kids dress in California?
Pause.
Very early for my coat, but thank you. I do hope it was no just the sweatshirt. Presumably there was something to go with it?
There can be several different options, including skirts and trousers for example, but neither can be specified for one gender. It is not a unisex uniform policy.
Gender issues do seem to be increasingly frequent in youngsters, even at very young ages. I am not sure what the best approach is myself, but undeniably there real issues developing.
General election 2019: Labour pledges to cap class sizes at 30 pupils
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50666078
But the problem is not so much that heads want to have classes of over 30, it's that they are forced into it because nobody wants to work in their schools.
If you were a teacher, would you want to work in an inner-city school in Hartlepool or a nice grammar school in Harrogate? Not really a hard choice, tbh.
So that in itself means that attracting enough teachers to such tough schools is very hard, and also that many of them tend to be the worse teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere.
What is the head supposed to do if they can't recruit enough teachers to meet this target? Send children home?
One possible way out of this is for schools to have more control over their own pay scales and to give more funding to schools struggling to attract teachers so they can pay higher salaries. That was, indeed, one of the ideas for academies. But it hasn't been a success.
And I note Labour don't say where this extra £25 billion will come from.
A bad day at work yesterday. It is miserable not having any beds to admit to, but much more miserable for the patients. No real prospect of improvement until the New Year. I would strongly advise against getting Ill this month.
Good result in the footy though to take my mind off it all.
He has apparently said if he becomes PM he will turn Chequers over to a homeless family.
He seems not to be aware that this would be illegal under the Chequers Estate Act 1917:
Clause 8(b): But if any Prime Minister shall decline to avail himself of the rights hereby conferred upon him then so long as he shall so decline similar rights shall be offered by the Administrative Trustees to the following persons and in the following order viz. :—The Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the time being The Secretary of State for the Colonies for the time being The United States Ambassador at the Court of Saint James's for the time being The President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the time being The First Lord of the Admiralty for the time being The Secretary of State for War for the time being The Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being The Lord Chief Justice of England for the time being or to the respective persons for the time being holding similar positions to the above
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/enacted
Edit - it occurs to me it would be deliciously ironic if he tried to put a homeless family in and as result the American Ambassador got the lease.
https://www.windy.com/?2019-12-12-12,51.420,-3.812,7
They do originate from a long way north....coming down the coast of Greenland.
I won't be backing the party whose leader is too scared to be interviewed by Andrew Neil
Obviously your point with respect to teacher shortages, especially in struggling areas with correspondingly bad schools, is valid. If Labour were really that committed to equality of opportunity in education, then they'd presumably withdraw parents' right of choice to where they sent their kids and use their National Education Service to allocate the most deprived children to the best schools, until such time as the worst schools could be brought up to scratch?
However, since Labour's programme includes a whole host of bungs that would disproportionately benefit the already well-off (e.g. knockdown rail fares, ending prescription charges, free personal care and abolishing tuition fees) we ought not to be surprised that rocking the boat with sharp-elbowed middle-class parents is pretty low down their list of priorities.
I remember in junior school in 1977 having violin lessons in the staff room (my memory is much better than my violin skills ever were). There were posters and flyers there from the NUT with a headline No classes with over 30 pupils, or something similar. My point is that keeping class sizes down has been a problem for well over 40 years.
The big step forward with Swinson's policy though, is allowing boys to wear skirts, which would be a good step forward. I have never understood why a skirt/dress is culturally so unacceptable for men, unless wearing a kilt or dressing up as a Roman.
Then again, maybe after "OGH LetterGate"?
He has also said he couldn't vote for a Corbyn-led Labour.
And now he won't vote for Boris either, even in a vote-swap.
So safely assuming it won't be Brexit, that leaves Green and LibDem.
I think it just might be LibDem.....
Don't see it as a vote for Corbyn see it as a sensible tactical vote against a Johnson landslide.
I believe Public Schools operate on class sizes of 18.
When I was doing A Levels there were 6 of us doing physics and that went down to four. We were told that big towns and cities had the option of pulling pupils for two of three schools to run one A Level subject - we were sceptical and I still am.
SNP 40% (+3)
SCon 31% (+2)
SLab 15% (-12)
SLD 10% (+3)
Baxtered:
SNP 38 seats (+3)
SCon 14 seats (+1)
SLD 5 seats (+1)
SLab 2 seats (-5)
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
However if the Tories did get 31% in Scotland and 14 Scottish seats it would be the best Tory result in Scotland since 1983 seats wise and votes wise since 1979, so much for Boris being unpopular with Scots and the Tories being doomed without Ruth Davidson
According to the Guardian headline Labour are promising to recruit 20,000 more teachers. Would it not be easier to reduce the rate at which young teachers are leaving the profession, or are they going to try to do that at well?
On the subject of class sizes: it’s the good, oversubscribed schools (particularly grammar schools) that tend to have large classes. Heads will go to an appeal and explain that the school is already full. The panel will agree but grant the appeal any way and you now have to deal with a class too big for the number of desks in any of your classrooms.
Johnson Maj of between 20 and 40
New direction for Lab on 13.12.19
Not sure if I will vote on next Lab leader.
Although of course good schools are oversubscribed for a very obvious reason.
Stick to the ECMWF or the UKMO Global Model.
Europe > US as ever!
And the weather’s going to be quite wet and miserable and all.
Having said that, we have classes of 33 and even 34, though most are smaller.
What chance has this cretin of losing next week
The seat winners simply got more votes. Its not like one party gets 12k votes but loses to another that got 7k mythical double-votes. If you want to win, get more votes - its not rocket science!
It seems to me that this particular group could (and should have been in the first place frankly) be excluded from women’s prisons without that decision having much to do any other part of the discussion about wider trans issues.
Clearly there would be a difference between 30 and the public school 18, but is there a difference between 30 and 34 ?
Of course, faith school might not be too keen on the Lib Dem policy:
https://tinyurl.com/uv4j5vu
A Liberal Democrat pledge to introduce gender-neutral clothing could pose problems for Jewish schools, the Jewish Leadership Council’s schools network, Pajes, has warned.
My sister was like this. She basically wanted to be a boy until she was about 14. Hormones did their thing, she became pretty relaxed about being a girl. She's now 30, happily married, perfectly normal. Fortunately no one was stupid enough back then to think that rather boyish girls should have puberty blocked followed by lots of surgery and usually mental health problems.